We received the following report from Shane NS5D covering one of the more important seminars held at this year’s Austin Summerfest, the ARES meeting with a briefing about Texas’ new disaster recovery / response teams.
Here is Shane’s report…
I wanted to give a brief summary of the ARES forum at Austin Summerfest. It was a very interesting session.
Janice Bruno of the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management (GDEM) gave an overview of Chief Jack Colley’s plan to build 4 hurricane “reentry” task forces. These task forces are based on lessons learned from Hurricane Ike and are designed to rapidly deploy following landfall of a hurricane on the Texas coast and speed recovery of the area.
There are 3 “light” task forces, based in Dallas, Waco and Austin, consisting of 250+ people, and one “heavy” task force based in San Antonio consisting of 500+ people.
The task forces will travel heavily armed with communications platforms (high-tech vehicles) pulled from many local government agencies. These platforms feature many different forms of communications including satellite voice and data, mobile cellular (cell on wheels), and radio equipment.
Each task force will also have a contingent of ham operators pulled from ARES, RACES and MARS. The coordination of these communications assets is to be done by the Communications Coordination Group (CCG), a newly formed office under GDEM led by Ms. Bruno.
There will be a mobilization exercise at the end of August in San Antonio that will focus on mobilization/demobilization procedures (mostly to do with paperwork and credentialing). More details to follow. Operators interested in volunteering for the task force should contact their EC, who will forward their information to the SEC.
The ARRL Section Managers from North Texas, South Texas and West Texas, along with their SECs, the West Gulf Director and Vice Director and Dennis Dura K2DCD, ARRL Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager, met with Ms. Bruno earlier in the day to discuss some of the details and challenges of integrating ham radio volunteers with the task forces. Issues such as reimbursement for travel expenses and lodging, and coordination across ARRL Section lines were discussed. South Texas SEC Mike Schwartz KG5TL gave a brief summary of that meeting.
South Texas SEC Mike Schwartz KG5TL also gave a presentation on a special project he and John Taylor KE5HAM were asked to complete on behalf of FEMA last year during the Hurricane Ike response. This request came through Dennis Dura at League headquarters, and involved installing a repeater on top of a hospital in Beaumont.
Mike then led a discussion regarding the ARES response on Galveston Island after Ike, and what to do when things go wrong. Issues arose when a representative of a served agency who requested ARES help tried to divert those communicators to other tasks not involved with communication, and interfered with their ability to assist another served agency on the Island. A lengthy and productive discussion ensued, and Mike reinforced the need for ARES operators to stay on task during a response and not allow themselves to be misused or redirected to non-communications functions.
Regards,
Shane NS5D
